Hands On With the LG G8 ThinQ and V50 5G Phone

LG's G8 ThinQ has a "hand recognition" feature and a full-screen speaker, and the V50 has an accesso

Sascha Segan

Feb. 25, 2019, 2:45 a.m.

BARCELONA—What does LG need to do to stand out? The perpetual number-three in the US phone market, LG tends to make high-quality phones with groundbreaking features, but is constantly overshadowed by Samsung. This year's Samsung Galaxy S10, for instance, takes one of LG's signature features—the wide-angle camera—and is sure to sell more units than LG did of its G7 and V40 combined.

Here at Mobile World Congress, LG is innovating again, whether or not anyone will listen. Its new G8 phone has a screen that also functions as a speaker, gesture controls, and a "hand ID" sensor that verifies your identity from the pattern of blood vessels in your hand. It also doesn't make you give up the traditional fingerprint sensor, unlike the Galaxy S10, and it has more powerful audio for headphones thanks to its Quad DAC audio converter.

Its 5G-powered V50, which LG says is coming to all four US carriers (but Sprint first), becomes the company's lower-cost answer to Samsung's folding phone by offering a second screen in a case. You've seen the Tweets of people claiming to have folding phones by taping two iPhones together: LG is doing that for real. The V50 is also surprisingly slim for a 5G phone, because Sprint's network uses traditional cellular frequencies that don't require a lot of extra antennas.

Going forward, LG notes, the "G" series will be kept for 4G-only phones, while the "V" series will be 5G devices. Carriers are saying the G8 will arrive "in the coming weeks," but without any more details or exact prices. I wonder if they're waiting for the excitement from the Samsung Galaxy S10 launch to dissipate a bit. In the meantime, here's an early look at LG's latest devices.

LG V50

LG's new flagship, its first 5G phone—and Sprint's first 5G phone—is a Snapdragon 855-powered beast with a 6.4-inch, 3,120-by-1,440 screen, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage (plus a microSD slot), and a 4,000mAh battery that charges to 50 percent in 55 minutes. The phone is waterproof and only comes in black.

The V50 has two cameras on the front, like the V40 does; there's an 80-degree, 8MP "regular" camera and a 90-degree, 5MP "wide-angle" camera. They can work together to do bokeh for selfies and to do tracking video focus.

Really though, the most striking thing about the V50 is that it feels like an ordinary phone. We thought that 5G phones would be big and cumbersome, and while the V50 is on the heavy side, it doesn't feel very thick.

"When I get questions about 5G smartphones," LG senior product manager Kyle Yoon said, "the top three concerns are first battery life, second heat dissipation, and third if the design is going to be too chunky. When we had the first 4G LTE smartphones, they were too thick," he said. The V50 has 1.2 days of battery life and a special "vapor chamber" for heat dissipation, and as I said, it isn't chunky.

The V50 uses Qualcomm's X50 modem, which works very well with Sprint's 2.5GHz TDD 5G network. Initially, I expect the 5G connection to get speeds of up to 300 to 400Mbps; the real value will be if it has a higher floor than Sprint's 4G network, never plummeting to the sub-10Mbps speeds you see sometimes on 4G. The V50 may run into trouble if Sprint merges with T-Mobile, though. T-Mobile intends to run a "nationwide" 600MHz 5G network and a center-city millimeter-wave network, and Sprint's version of the V50 won't support either of those.

LG V50 Triple Cameras

Like with the V40, there are three cameras on the back of the V50: a 12-megapixel, f/1.5 main shooter, a 16MP, f/1.9 super-wide-angle camera, and a 12MP, "2x" f/2.4 telephoto camera. If you want an LG phone with three cameras in the US later this year, you'll have to get a V50; while there's a three-camera version of the G8, it won't come out in the states.

LG V50 Thickness Vs. V40

The V50 isn't much thicker than LG's V40 phablet, although it's noticeably heavier. The V50 is 0.33 inches thick and 6.45 ounces, compared to the V40's 0.3 inches and 5.96 ounces.

LG makes a big deal of the V50's "thin and seamless design," and it definitely doesn't feel like a whopper. The secret is that it's a 5G phone for Sprint, which uses existing 4G frequencies for its 5G network. That means Sprint phones don't need a bunch of extra millimeter-wave antennas, which add to the size of a phone. LG says the V50 will be coming to other carriers later this year in a millimeter-wave-friendly version, and it'll be interesting to see if that one's bigger.

LG V50 Camera Samples

The V50's camera looks to be very similar to the V40's before it. Here are some sample shots with the three lenses: first the standard, then the zoom, and finally the wide-angle. The phone has an "AI camera" mode that tries to identify scenes and set colors and focus appropriately. It also has a night mode, but it probably won't measure up to Google's Night Sight.

LG V50 Dual-Screen Case

LG is not making a folding phone this year. Spokesman Ken Hong laughed off Samsung's $1,980 Galaxy Fold, saying it's just too expensive.

"That doesn't mean we're not going to have one down the road," he said. "We just didn't think it made business sense this year."

Instead, LG is offering a case for the V50 that has a whole 6.2-inch, 2,160-by-1,080 second screen inside it. The case uses three pogo pins on the back of the V50 to power the second screen, and a proprietary short-range, high-speed wireless technology to transmit data. LG didn't say how much the case will cost or when it's coming out, though.

The case weighs 4.6 ounces. It's 3.3 inches wide and 0.6 inches thick, so yeah, it's as thick as two smartphones being held together with a hinge. All of LG's 5G phones going forward will have a dual-screen option, Hong said.

Back of V50 Dual-Screen Case

The back of the dual-screen case exposes the V50's cameras. As you'll see, a bunch of the dual-screen features focus on using these cameras.

Not a Fancy Hinge

I'm hoping the dual-screen case will be at least somewhat affordable, because LG decided to dodge the whole complex-hinge conundrum. As you can see here, the two screens just flop on top of each other.

Two Screens, Two Apps

The dual-screen case doesn't work like the Galaxy Fold; you can't have one app span both screens. Rather, both screens initially appear as Android home screens, and you can call up different apps on either.

There are a bunch of tricks you can do, though. You can use the bottom screen as a viewfinder to angle the phone's camera in ways you wouldn't normally be able to do. You can use it as a great big selfie flash. You can even take screenshots on one screen, and toss the image over to the messaging app in the other screen.

Flipping Between Dual Screens

To control the dual screens, you hit a little virtual button on the side of your main display that lets you swap what's happening on the two screens, or turn the secondary screen off. The apps on both screens are able to maintain focus at once, LG said.

Dual Screen as Gamepad

When you're playing a game, the secondary screen can become a gamepad. It functions as a Bluetooth gamepad, and you can choose from a range of virtual gamepad designs. Playing Asphalt 9, I found the buttons to be responsive, but the steering wheel to be confusing and frustrating. Pre-release software, natch.

Dual-Screen Case Front

The front of the dual screen case is not a screen itself; it's just a case. The screen is on the inside. That's another way it isn't like the Galaxy Fold (and hopefully will cost much less than the Galaxy Fold).

LG G8 ThinQ

LG's 4G flagship for the year is the G8 ThinQ, another Snapdragon 855-powered phone with a 6.1-inch, 3,120-by-1,440 AMOLED screen. This is the first G-series LG phone to have an OLED display, and I hope it doesn't push up the price; one of LG's advantages, in my mind, has been having the G series be just a little less expensive than the Samsung Galaxy S lineup. The phone also has 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 3,500mAh battery.

While Samsung's Galaxy S10+ uses a new "dynamic OLED" that supports HDR10+, LG's OLEDs still only support HDR10. Yoon said LG's displays are still superior because they have better "uniformity" and "durability...where the color reproduction is going to stay the same for two or more years of usage. There will be other metrics the Samsung display will beat us on," he admitted.

One of the phone's most unusual features is its "Crystal Sound AMOLED" display, which uses the screen as a speaker. We've seen this thing before, as far back as 2014's Sharp Aquos Crystal and certain Kyocera phones, but LG is taking a smarter approach this time by not relying entirely on the screen-speaker. The phone also has a standard bottom-ported speaker and a resonance chamber to add bass if it's put down on a table. The result is very little bezel (because you don't need an earpiece), but still a loud, rich sound.

[PLEASE INCLUDE THE VIDEO I SENT?]

Two Cameras, or Three?

The G8 ThinQ comes in two different models depending on which country you're in; it sounds like the triple-camera model will come to countries where the 5G V50 isn't available. The dual-camera model for the US will have an 8MP main camera and a 16MP wide-angle camera.

Countries outside the US will also get a G8s, a similar phone with a different combination of specs: three cameras on the back and a 6.2-inch, 2,248-by-1,080 screen. According to LG's spec sheet, the somewhat less expensive G8s will have the G8's hand recognition and gesture controls, but lose the under-display speaker, Quad DAC, and waterproofing.

LG G8 Fingerprint Sensor

Note that the G8, unlike the S10+, still has a traditional fingerprint sensor on the back. The G8 has a bunch of new, innovative ways to check your identity, but you can still fall back on the old-school physical sensor. Also, the phone comes in black, blue, or red.

Hand Recognition

The G8 has an infrared front-facing sensor that can do not only face ID, but "hand ID," reading the pattern of blood vessels under your palm and wrist for what LG says is a very accurate identification.

I set it up and tried it. It's certainly weird. You activate it by first flipping the screen on, and then moving your palm toward the screen; but not too close, maybe four inches away. It worked reliably once I got the gesture right, but the weirdness of the motion caused me to turn on the facial ID as well, which also worked well.

Touchless Gestures

The "touchless" G8 has a bunch of other gesture controls, which I didn't test. You can make a snapping gesture to take a screen shot, wave to control music volume or answer calls, or wave to turn off alarms or snooze timers. That's all useful, but it's hard to see any of it as groundbreaking.

LG didn't provide a release date and price for the G8, yet. But if the past several years of LG's history can be a guide, it will come out in March, on all the major US carriers, at a price somewhat lower than the Samsung Galaxy S10.

About the Author

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed hundreds of smartphones, tablets and other gadgets in more than 9 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks project, one of the hosts of the daily PCMag Live Web show and speaks frequently in mass media on cell-phone-related issues. His commentary has appeared on ABC, the BBC, the CBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, and in newspapers from San Antonio, Texas to Edmonton, Alberta.

Segan is also a multiple award-winning travel writer, having contributed to the Frommer's series of travel guides and Web sites for more than a decade. Other than his home town of New York, his favorite … See Full Bio